The Seventeenth Article of Religion Considered. 



SERMON 



PREACHED IN ST, PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW-YORK, 



AT THE 



OPENING OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 



OF THE 



PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 



IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



On Wednesday, October 6th, 18*1. 



IS 



xo&jL' 



The Seventeenth Article of Religion Considered. 

A 

SERMON 

PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW-YORK, 

AT THE 

OPENING OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 

OF THE 

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, 
On Wednesday, October 6th, 1841. 



BY BENJAMIN T. ONDERDONK, D. D. 

Bishop of the Diocese of New-York, and Professor of the Nature, Minn try 
and Polity of the Church in the General Theological Seminary. 



' \ 

NEW-TORK: 

SWORDS, STANFORD, k CO. 

1841, 



• 



SERMON 



Romans, 8 : 29. 
Whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate. 

The announcing of these words as the text on which is to 
be founded the usual discourse at the opening of this solemn 
and important council of the church, may possibly suggest 
the idea of the preacher's intention to embark in the wide 
range of theological controversy which the weakness and 
narrowness of human judgment has sought out in those 
parts of God's revealed word that relate to the high myste- 
ries of his foreknowledge and predestination. Not so. My 
object is of a more immediate and practical bearing upon 
the occasion of our present assembling. We meet on the 
common ground of attachment to the doctrinal standards of 
our church. Among them our seventeenth article of religion 
is, it is well known, most extensively discussed. From its 
supposed meaning, ground is often taken for accusing the 
great body of our clergy of inconsistency with the faith of 
their church, and also for representing our standards as in- 
consistent with themselves. I purpose, brethren, making this 
article the present particular subject of consideration, and 
drawing from it, as God may give me ability, reflections 
suitable to the sacred occasion on which we have come 
together. 

Let me, however, first crave indulgence for most sincerely 
disavowing all desire or effort to dictate. I am aware that 
some difference of opinion exists among us respecting this 
article. The difference is honest and sincere on all sides. 
The present well-meant effort to promote unity of views, 
will, I humbly hope, be as well received, although I may 
not succeed in producing in others as thorough a conviction 



of its soundness as that which has impelled to its adoption. 
And even if there should not be entire accordance with the 
views presented, I will yet venture to hope that the practical 
conclusions to which they are brought will be suffered to 
stand upon their own merits, and not be denied the influ- 
ence which, by God's blessing, they may be calculated to 
have, for good, on the present council of the church. 

The celebrated Pascal has, in his " Thoughts," a sound 
rule for the interpretation of Scripture, which ought also, in 
justice, to be applied, as far as practicable, to all other works. 
"In order to a right understanding of Scripture,*' he ob- 
serves, " we ought to find out a sense in which all the seem- 
ingly opposite places shall agree. Nor is it sufficient to have 
an interpretation in which many consonant passages shall 
be united ; but we must have one in which the most disso- 
nant shall meet and conspire." 

This is no more than the dictate of common justice. 
Every man, and of course every author, should be supposed 
to be consistent with himself, unless it be made to appear 
that his conduct or his sentiments can admit of no other con- 
struction than what necessarily involves inconsistency. This 
is a measure of justice which We all expect, and which, 
therefore, upon christian principles, we should all be willing 
cheerfully to extend. 

If this is true with regard to man in his individual, it is 
no less so in reference to his social capacity. Bodies of men 
are entitled to the same justice that is due to their members 
personally ; especially in their solemn official acts and de- 
clarations. 

To apply this principle. Our branch of the catholic 
church has authoritatively set forth a volume which, in 
forms of divine service, creeds, articles, and other docu- 
ments, is the solemn declaration of her view of the doctrines 
of the Gospel. Of this volume she asks that it be " examin- 
ed with a meek, candid, and charitable frame of mind, with- 
out prejudice or prepossessions." She has a right to expect 
this, and is justified in requiring that the judgment formed 
of every particular part should be regulated and qualified by 



a general knowledge and fair application of the current 
sense of the whole. She presumes not, indeed, to claim for 
her standards the infallibility of inspiration ; nor therefore 
to say that inconsistency in those standards, as in revelation, 
is impossible. She asks, however, that this inconsistency be 
not presumed ; and that it be not charged, unless it is the in- 
evitable result of a fair construction of her standards. She 
knows of no writings, not even the Divine word itself, in 
which, if insulated passages be taken without regard to their 
connection, the most palpable inconsistencies may not be 
made to appear. She knows, however, that in all writings, 
divine and human, many passages which, abstractly taken, 
appear to convey a certain sense, will yet as plainly bear 
another, when considered in their proper connection with 
the general scope and object of the writings of which they 
are parts, and with due regard to the qualifications and limi- 
tations imposed by other portions of the same works. 
These — it is an obvious dictate of sound sense and common 
justice — should always control the rule and measure of in- 
terpretation. 

These remarks are deemed especially appropriate to a 
consideration of our seventeenth article of religion. The 
most confident appeals have been made to that article by 
persons both within and without the pale of the church in 
proof that she is calvinistic in her doctrines ; and they are 
often connected with preconceived prejudices on the subject 
which ought to give way before the article can be expected 
to receive a fair and impartial examination. 

Against this view of the article a strong presumption lies 
in the fact that our standards generally are inconsistent with 
the leading peculiarities of Calvinism. 

The doctrine of partial redemption is one of those peculi- 
arities, and one essentially interwoven with the system. It 
maintains that the mediation of Christ was designed for 
those only who, by virtue of an irrespective divine decree, 
were, from all eternity, distinguished from the mass of man- 
kind by being destined to salvation. There is, indeed, a 
very respectable portion of those professing the calvinistic 



creed, who, not maintaining with the others, that redemption 
and salvation are necessarily connected, admit of a universal 
redemption, although supposing the benefit of salvation to 
be entirely dependent on the above-mentioned decree. The 
two systems, therefore, may be considered, as far as the pre- 
sent argument is concerned, as virtually the same. The real 
and substantial benefit of Christ's redemption — and that, in- 
deed, for which only we can conceive of the necessity of 
that redemption — is limited to the few thus eternally chosen 
to the privilege. They only were in the Divine mind, as to 
receive its full and ultimate benefit, when that redemption 
was counselled and effected. 

Is this the church's doctrine ? " The offering of Christ 
once made," says the thirty-first article, " is that perfect re- 
demption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all thesins of the 
whole worlds both original and actual." " The Prayer of 
Consecration " in the communion uses much the same lan- 
guage — " Jesus Christ made upon the cross, by His one obla- 
tion of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient 
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole 
world? In the catechism^ the catechumen is taught to say, 
in reference to the creed, "I learn to believe in God the Son, 
who hath redeemed me, and all mankind ;" and to express 
his hearty thanks to his Heavenly Father, for having u call- 
ed" him, by baptism, into a " state of salvation? In the li- 
tany we address God the Son as the " Redeemer of the 
world? 

Such, I need not say to the present congregation, is far 
from being the language of the calvinistic standards. It is de- 
cidedly opposed to it, and is, I doubt not, seen by you to be in 
accordance with the blessed, evangelical doctrine that Christ 
tasted of death for every man ; that He is the Propitiation 
for the sins of the whole world j and that He is not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to re- 
pentance. 

It, of course, follows from the system to which ours is 
here supposed to be in contrariety, that all the blessings of 
the covenant in Christ Jesus are theirs only who are inclu^ 



ded in the supposed fixed personal decree which lies at the 
foundation of that system. 

In our baptismal services, every child and person bapti- 
zed is declared to be " born again, and wade an heir of 
. everlasting salvation" In the " Order of Confirmation," 
the bishop, in reference to all tvho come to be confirmed, 
having in view their previous baptism, uses these words : — 
"Almighty and Ever-living God, who hast vouchsafed to 
regenerate these thy servants, and hast given unto them 
forgiveness of all their sins." In the communion, it is said 
of all " who have duly received " the " holy mysteries," 
that God does "thereby assure" them "that" they "are 
heirs, through hope, of" His " everlasting kingdom" 
These passages, speaking the current sense of our standards, 
clearly give a view of the evangelical dispensation totally 
different from that which regards it as founded on an eternal 
and irrespective election of individuals. 

No important part, also, of the evidence that our standards 
are not cajvinistic, is the entire absence in them of what 
forms a part of all standards professedly so, a recognition of 
the awful doctrine of reprobation, or the consigning, from all 
eternity, of those not chosen to life, to everlasting perdition ; 
and this often connected with the doctrine of the necessity 
of sinning imposed upon them by God himself. 

Did time allow, the anti-calvinistic character of our stand- 
ards might be further proved from the sentiments of the re- 
formers of the church of England who fixed those stand- 
ards ; and from the clearly-established fact, that of the earlier 
continental reformers, the standards of those of the Lutheran 
and not of the Calvinistic school were principally had in 
view in constructing those of the church of England. Con- 
nected with this argument, also, reference might be made to 
the well-known generally, if not universally, prevalent sen- 
timents of those who were concerned in fixing the standards 
of the American church. 

I trust it will not now be deemed a hasty conclusion, that 
our ecclesiastical standards, as a whole, are adverse to the 
calvinistic system. According, therefore, to the just princi- 



10 

pies above noticed, the same must be presumed of any parti- 
cular portion of those standards, unless it be made to appear 
that such portion will not admit of a construction consistent 
with the character of the whole. 

It would perhaps be wrong to treat on a subject like that 
now before us, without reference to what appears to be un- 
doubtedly a fact — a desire on the part of the framers of the 
articles to adapt them to a peaceful union with the church 
of moderate men, notwithstanding any bias which they may 
have towards counter peculiarities of doctrine. Without 
granting that they thereby designed the large license for 
diversity of doctrine, or the mere negative character of the 
articles — as if they were intended to declare merely what 
should not be opposed, and not what it is a duty to enforce — 
for which some contend ; I think there is ground for admit- 
ting that the moderation referred to has given to the lan- 
guage of some of the articles an apparent want of point and 
of decision. 

With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to a^onsidera- 
tion of the seventeenth article ; hoping to make it appear 
that it will admit of a very natural interpretation not incon- 
sistent with the anti-calvinistic tenor of our standards Gene- 
rally, and according to which it may be rendered the source 
of much edification both to individual christians and the 
church collectively. Nor ought we to be insensible to the 
fact that a contrary interpretation would be an* arraying of 
the church against herself, by representing her as enforcing 
different doctrines in different parts of her standards. 

The article is entitled " Of Predestination and Election," 
and is in the following words : — 

Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, 
whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he 
hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to de- 
liver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen 
in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to 
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Wherefore 
they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God< 
be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working 
in due season ; they through grace obey the calling: they 



11 

be justified freely: they be made Sons of God by adoption : 
they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus 
Christ : they walk religiously in good works ; and at length 
by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. 

As the godly consideration of Predestination, and onr elec 
(ion in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable 
comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the 
working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the 
flesh and their earthly members, and drawing np their mind 
to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly 
establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation, to be 
enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle 
their love towards God : so, for curious and carnal persons, 
lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their 
eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is a most danger- 
ous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into 
desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, 
no less perilous than desperation. 

Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such 
wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture : 
And in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which 
we have expressly declared unto us in the word of God. 

Every reasonable person who wishes to enter candidly 
and fairly into the consideration of a subject, will dismiss 
from his mind all prepossessions arising out of mere words. 
Predestination is a term, which, by improper concession, 
usually suggests at once to the mind the idea of the calvinis- 
tic theory of the divine decrees. To say, then, that the 
church acknowledges predestination, is, in the estimation of 
superficial thinkers, tantamount to saying that she acknow- 
ledges that theory ; just as, in popular misapprehension, the 
term catholic is strangely misapplied to the peculiarities oif 
the church of Rome. This is obviously wrong and unrea- 
sonable. We should take the church's own definition of the 
terms she uses, and understand them in that sense, discard- 
ing any view of them which may be the result of theii 
popular misapplication. 

Before suffering ourselves, therefore, to attach any parti- 
cular meaning to the word " predestination " here used, w< 
should endeavor clearly to ascertain what the church under- 



12 

stands by it ; for it will be remembered that the present pur- 
pose is not so much the vindication and defence of the doc- 
trine concerned, as the ascertaining of what is the doctrine 
as set forth in the standards of the church. 

" Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, 
whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He 
hath constantly decreed, by His counsel, secret to us, to de- 
liver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen 
in Christ out of mankind ; and to bring them, by Christ, to 
everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor." 

Here a certain purpose of God is predicated of a certain 
description of individuals, denominated " those whom He 
hath chosen in Christ out of mankind." Now, who are 
these ? The inquiry is not presumptuous, but any answer , 
not from the mouth of God himself, would be so. Have we 
such an answer ? To the law and to the testimony let us 
appeal. 

To " the Church of the Thessalonians " St. Paul says, 
" Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God ;" and 
again, " We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, 
brethren, because God hath, from the beginning, chosen you 
to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief 
of the truth ; whereunto He called you by our Gospel to the 
obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." St. Peter 
sends a salutation to those to whom his first epistle is ad- 
dressed, from " the church at Babylon," which he declares 
to be lt elected together with " them. The " calling and elec- 
tion " of those to whom he addressed his second epistle, he 
exhorts them to " make sure." Of " the church at Corinth," 
although blamed for many and grievous departures from 
christian consistency, St. Paul says, " God is faithful, by 
whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord ;" and evidently speaks of their calling as 
synonymous with their reception into the church. With 
" the churches of Galatia" St. Paul finds much and griev- 
ous fault. « O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, 
that ye should not obey the truth ?" " I am afraid of you, lest 
I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." And yet of these 



13 

same Galatians he says, " Ye are all the children of God by 
faith in Christ Jesus." " Because ye are sons, God hath sent 
forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, 
Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son ; 
and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." In refe- 
rence to this great personal unworthiness of the privileges 
and blessings that appertained to them as members of the 
church, and to the great guilt of this inconsistency, he thus 
expresses his affectionate concern, " I marvel that ye are so 
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of 
Christ.^ Throughout the epistle to the Romans, the Jews, 
as the church under the former, and christians as the church 
under the latter dispensation, are often called the elect, the 
election, and by similar epithets. And in various other parts 
of his epistles — indeed those epistles generally may be said 
to be thus characterised — St. Paul uses such epithets as ap- 
plicable to the body at large — the church in which he min- 
istered. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of 
children." " In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, 
being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who 
worketh all things according to the purpose of His own will." 
A multitude of similar passages might be added. 

Hence, and from the general tenor of Scripture, it appears 
that " those whom God hath chosen," elected, or called " in 
Christ out of mankind," are the church, which, according 
to the original Scripture term, signifies the called. And it 
may be safely affirmed that no other calling, election, or 
predestination, at least in connection with the privileges of 
the evangelical covenant, is known in Scripture. Nor can 
any trace of belief in any other be found in the early chris- 
tian fathers until the time of St. Augustine in the fifth cen- 
tury. This fact is certainly a strong presumptive argument 
against the theory of a personal irrespective election being 
evangelical. If it was a part of the Gospel, the good and 
great men who lived during, and for three hundred years 
after, the days of the apostles, could not, in their writings, 
have so totally avoided any notice of it. Indeed, the princi- 
ple of determinate decrees affecting individual character and 



14 

state, is opposed by several early fathers in their apologies 
for Christianity. 

The passage, however, in St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, 
whence the text is taken, is often quoted as conclusive against 
these views, and in favor of the doctrine of individual 
election. "Whom he did foreknow he also did predesti- 
nate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might 
be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom 
he did predestinate, them he also called ; and whom he call- 
ed, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he 
also glorified." 

The obvious design of this epistle, as appears from the 
whole tenor of it, is to vindicate to the Jews the divine jus- 
tice and goodness in what was to them matter of much 
complaint — the admission of the Gentiles to partake with 
them in the privileges and blessings of the covenant or 
church of God. The apostle represents the ultimate recep- 
tion of the Gentiles into the church as having been, all 
along, designed, ordained, or predestinated by the Almighty. 
They, as was the case formerly with the Jews only, were, by 
admission into the church, to become the elect, the chosen, 
the called, according to the purpose of God's will. God, 
foreknowing or foreseeing this as a part of his great and 
gracious plan, did "predestinate" or determine to bring it 
to pass ; and thus to make the Gentiles christians^ " con- 
formed," in holiness here and glory hereafter, " to the image 
of his Son." For the accomplishment of this gracious purpose, 
he, in his good time. " called " these Gentiles by sending to 
them the ministers of his church, and receiving them into 
its holy communion. They thus became "justified," or ad- 
mitted to that state of justification or favor and acceptance 
with God in Christ, which is the privilege of church-mem- 
bership, or a covenant-relation to Jesus Christ. " And whom 
he justified, them he also glorified." This, like the several 
other propositions in the sentence, being expressed in the 
past tense, would appear to refer to some blessing already 
imparted to those who had been called into the church ; 
probably the glorious honor and privileges which had thus 



15 

been bestowed upon them; their exaltation from the hea- 
then ignorance and superstition in which they had been 
sunk ; their admission to the membership of that church 
which is all glorious within ; their adoption into the family 
of the King of Glory ; the title thus conferred on them, 
through Christ, to the sanctification of God's Holy Spirit ; 
and the access thus ministered to the means of that grace 
which is to carry the faithful children of the covenant on- 
ward, from glory to glory, until they attain to theexcellent 
glory of inheritance with the saints in light. 

Any understanding of the word " glorified " here used, as 
implying a present certainty of future eternal glory, and a 
fixed and immoveable interest in it, would be opposed as 
well to the probationary character of the Gospel in general, 
as especially to the strongly marked case of St. Paul, who 
uniformly speaks of himself as one of the elect, the chosen, 
the called, the predestinated, and yet expresses his deep and 
humble solicitude lest he should ultimately become a cast- 
away. 

That a general or corporate, and not a personal election is 
meant by the apostle in this passage, is further obvious from 
expressions which immediately follow it, " What shall we 
say then to these things 1 If God be for us "—for the church 
— "who can be against us? He that spared not his own 
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, with 
him also, freely give us all things V 

In perfect accordance, then, with Scripture, is the church's 
doctrine that every one baptized is, by baptism, made a mem- 
ber of Christy that is of his church, and thus one of his 
elect, his chosen, his called, his predestinated ; a child of 
God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ; and thus 
called into a state of salvation. 

This view of predestination and election, it will be per- 
ceived, has no reference to individual personal character. It 
is a predestination of a body of men, the church, to glorious 
and gracious spiritual privileges, not necessarily involving 
the ultimate attainment of those privileges by every member 
of that body. God has not been pleased to reveal to us any 



16 

predestination touching the eternal state of individuals. We, 
therefore, know of none, and should presume none. But he 
has been pleased to reveal the awfully momentous truth that 
we who, by being in the church, are of the number of his 
called and his elect, must give all diligence to make our call- 
ing and election sure, by diligent and devout application, in 
true faith, to the means which he has appointed for our 
growth in holiness here, and our attainment, through Christ's 
merits, to everlasting happiness hereafter. 

Is, now, the seventeenth article inconsistent with the evan- 
gelical view of the subject, thus set forth in Scripture, and 
adopted, illustrated, and enforced by the church ? 

Through that depravity, brought upon our nature by its 
fall, whereby man is very far gone from original righteous- 
ness, " curse and damnation " must be our inevitable por- 
tion, unless the mercy of God interposes to avert the awful 
doom. It does interpose. Christ, the Mediator, appears in 
our behalf. By his atonement he renders divine mercy con- 
sistent with divine justice, and by his merit procures divine 
grace for man. God, in consideration of this mediation, wills, 
counsels, decrees, predestinates — for they all mean the same 
thing — that man shall be delivered from this curse and 
damnation. This design of God, however, is, of course, 
consistent with himself, and with his dispensations, It re- 
cognizes man as a moral and responsible agent. It cannot, 
therefore, compel him to be saved, but enables him to be 
saved. It puts salvation within his reach, and makes it his 
own concern to see that it is secured* God might, if he 
had chosen, have made man other than a moral agent. But 
he has not chosen to do so, and therefore regulates all his 
dispensations with a regard to man's moral agency. He pro- 
poses to man a plan whereby this deliverance from curse 
and damnation may be effected. At its foundation lies the 
great atonement of his Son as the only procuring cause of 
grace and mercy. In that Son, Christ Jesus the Lord, is 
provided a covenant-relation between God and man ; and 
this relation is furnished in the church. To this he makes 
his promises, coupled with the conditions which he is pleas- 



17 

ed to impose, and has entrusted it with the dispensing of 
the means and pledges of his grace and mercy. They who 
are brought into this covenant-relation to God are thus 
" chosen in Christ out of mankind." They are in that state 
in which " God hath decreed to deliver " men " from curse 
and damnation, and bring them, by Christ, to everlasting 
salvation, as vessels made to honor." This is the privilege 
of those who are in this covenant-state, the blessings of 
which, but for their own fault, will be secured to them. 

This is the fundamental doctrine of the article : that the 
church is invested with the high honor and precious privi- 
lege of being the appointed medium through which delive- 
rance is promised from the curse and damnation consequent 
on human depravity and wickedness. The deliverance is 
indeed promised, as all God's promises are made to men, on 
conditions required by him. In default of which conditions 
the blessing promised is wickedly rejected, and a case pre- 
sented analogous to many noticed in holy writ, in which the 
divine purpose is thwarted and turned aside by man's in- 
gratitude agreeably to the warnings and threatenings of 
God himself. Failure by the members of the church to 
make their calling and election sure, as God has ordered 
that it should be done, is their resistance of the counsel of 
God against themselves, and their incurring the tremendous 
guilt of neglecting the great salvation placed within their reach. 
The article proceeds to state the process by which this 
calling and election is to be made sure, and the promised 
blessings of the covenant thus enjoyed. 

" They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of 
God," that is, they who are admitted to the precious spiritual 
privileges and blessings of membership of Christ's church, 
"be called according to God's purpose— this gracious pur- 
pose of spiritual and eternal good to his church — " by his 
Spirit, working in due season," at a fitting time, according 
to the article as originally framed in Latin. The idea here- 
in contained appears to be. that the call referred to comes 
through appropriate means, under circumstances of time, 
place, and occurrences, adapted to serious spiritual impres- 



IS 

sions. We are rarely to look for it supernaturally, and 
never irresistibly. It comes in the course of divine provi- 
dence, through some of the unnumbered and constantly oc- 
curring events and dispensations which call to serious re- 
flection and consideration, and through the graciously estab- 
lished means of conversion and sanctification which are pro- 
vided in the church. 

"They, through grace, obey the calling." This must 
be of free will, or it cannot be obedience. And Scripture 
and experience unite in testifying that it must be through 
grace, or our weak and frail nature could not effect it. The 
grace, however, is offered, not forced upon us ; else, also, 
there would be contradiction to God's design that we should 
be moral and responsible agents. Let the grace be duly re- 
ceived, the call obeyed, the true and living faith which it 
enjoins, cherished as the vital principle of all godliness, and 
the life and conduct regulated accordingly ; and all is safe. 
Free justification is awarded. The glorious liberty of the 
sons of God is enjoyed. Conformity to the image of his only 
begotten Son — so great is God's mercy in favorably regard- 
ing man's poor services, and allowing them, if but rendered 
in true faith, to be covered with the merits of the sufficient 
righteousness of Christ, and thus, coming up with accept- 
ance before Him, to be regarded as in Christ — conform- 
ity to the image of his only begotten Son is attained. The 
happy subjects of this " so excellent a benefit of God," by the 
grace, and with the holy motives, thus furnished, " walk re- 
ligiously in good works; and at length, by God's mercy, 
they attain to everlasting felicity." Yes j by God's mercy. 
Not by their faith or by their works. Neither can justify or 
save them. In our most confiding faith, and our highest 
righteousness, we can be but unprofitable servants, miserably 
deficient in aught that can commend us to God. In our ut- 
most human ability) we are but weak, and totally insufficient. 
Our own merit, nay, our total want of merit, would inevita- 
bly sink us to the depths of perdition. The earliest and 
feeblest movements of our hearts towards goodness come of 
that grace which, by virtue of Christ's redemption, was re- 



19 

stored to our nature after its fall. Every subsequent ad- 
vance in holiness is the result of an increase of grace, con- 
sequent, by God's mere mercy, on the use of means in them- 
selves totally insufficient. The highest grade of goodness to 
which we can possibly attain is full of un worthiness and 
imperfection. It can be acceptable and available only for 
the sake of our Great Advocate with the Father. Therefore 
is it rightly added in the article, as we are bound to own in 
the fullest sense, that it is only " by GocVs mercy " that the 
very best " attain to everlasting felicity." 

"Sweet, pleasant and unspeakable," indeed, is the " com- 
fort "derived from "the' godly consideration of predestina- 
tion and our election in Christ." " Our election," says the 
article, clearly representing it as a blessing common to the 
church. Yes, brethren, fellow-members of the mystical body 
of Christ, this election in Him is indeed ours. It is yours. 
It is mine. We, blessed be God, are among those whom he 
hath chosen in Christ out of mankind. Glorious and ex- 
alted, indeed, is our privilege ; but O ! how great our guilt, 
and how horrible the punishment, if we walk not worthy of 
this vocation wherewith we are called, and make not this 
our calling and election sure ! 

" Full," indeed, " of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable com- 
fort," is the reflection that, by God's grace, we are obeying 
this heavenly calling, and may, therefore, cherish the sure 
and certain hope of attaining, through his mercy, to the end, 
even the salvation of our souls. And to the attainment of 
this hope, this "sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort," 
no supernatural assurance is necessary. The word of God 
does not authorize expectation of this. Nor a state of highly- 
wrought ecstasy. There is no promise of this in Scripture. 
An humble consciousness, a practical proof within ourselves, 
of " the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works 
of the flesh, and" our " earthly members, and drawing up " 
our " mind to high and heavenly things," — these are the 
only substantial grounds of christian hope. 

Thus is our faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed 



20 

through Christ, established and confirmed, and our love to 
God enkindled. In that state of calling and election which 
God has established in his church, and having warranted 
reason to trust that, by his grace, we are making it sure, 
what shall separate us from the love of him? His promise, 
counsel, and predestination are our security. Our hearts, 
therefore, shall not be moved. They may often fail to suc- 
cor us from their own resources ; but God will be the strength 
of our heart and our portion for ever. 

But "curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of 
Christ," so curious as to indulge a presumptuous disposition 
to speculate too much upon God's counsels and decrees, 
and so carnal as gladly to avail themselves of any cloak for 
their sin, may entertain such views of u the sentence of God's 
predestination," as, by presumption of his fixed purpose to 
save them, or of their inevitable reprobation, or exclusion 
from salvation, to give themselves no concern about work- 
ing out that salvation, but rather to become hardened in in- 
difference ; and, in the latter case, to yield to " a most dan- 
gerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either 
into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean liv- 
ing, no less perilous than desperation." A most conclusive 
testimony this language of the article against the Calvinistic 
doctrine of reprobation ! 

Throughout this discourse, my respected and beloved 
brethren, I have endeavored to avoid that attempted pry- 
ing into the secret things of God which too often accom- 
panies discussions on such subjects. What he chooses we 
should know respecting his nature, attributes, counsels, 
operations, decrees, and will, he has revealed in his holy 
word ; and further than that we should neither desire nor 
try to know. I have endeavored to treat the subject as far 
as the light of that word goes. If, in being governed by that, 
we still find some difficulties to be cleared, let us remember 
that there are degrees of knowledge beyond the reach of 
finite intellect, in a future state, the glass through which we 
now see darkly will be removed ; knowledge, in part, will be 
done away; and we shall know even as also we are known. 



21 

Until we attain that state, let us be content to leave secret 
things to the Lord our God ; and be mainly anxious to pro- 
fit by those things which are revealed and intended for us. 
Whatever things respecting himself God may be pleased to 
leave undisclosed, he has surely shed clear and sufficient 
light upon our duty. We have souls to be saved ; and he 
has taught us how we are to work out their salvation. He 
has chosen us, who are members of his church in Christ, 
out of mankind, that he may deliver us from curse and dam- 
nation, and bring us, by Christ, to everlasting salvation. 
This calling and election we are to make sure, and are in- 
structed how to do so. 

On these, and all other points connected with our spiritual 
and eternal welfare, it is wholesome counsel given us by this 
article, that " we must receive God's promises in such wise 
as they are generally set forth to us in holy Scripture," 
shrinking from all vain efforts to be wise above what is 
written, and all presumptuous endeavors to seek ingeniously 
wrought interpretations of the inspired word, or such as will 
deprive that blessed word of its general character as good 
tidings to all men. 

" In our doings that will of God is to be followed which 
we have expressly declared unto us in the word of God ;" 
not seeking evasions of its plain and wholesome truths, or 
charging God foolishly with having a secret will running 
counter to that which is revealed. Thus we may hope to 
be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto the salva- 
tion which Christ has purchased for us. 

The subject, in the present treatment of which I have 
drawn so largely on the attention of the respected and be- 
loved audience around me, is not, I humbly hope, without 
especial interest in reference to the solemn occasion on 
which we are now assembled. If there is truth in the views 
that have been taken, the church of God is invested with an 
interest of the highest and holiest character. It is " the sa- 
cramental host of" His "elect," the chosen body of those 
who are in His own appointed way of grace and salvation. 
The Convention now about to be formed represents the por- 



22 

tion of that body which God has placed in this republic. 
The members of that Convention will be invested with the 
stupendous agency of carrying on God's gracious and eter- 
nally-cherished purpose towards His elect. O dear brethren : 
you who share with me the grievously-pressing burdens and 
responsibilities of the episcopate, you who, in narrower 
spheres, and with lessened cares and obligations, aid us in 
our extensive pastoral cures, and you who, in the capacities 
in which laics may rightly do so, would serve the church ; 
let none of us dismiss, for a moment, from our minds, the 
solemn consideration that we are here to be engaged — not 
in consultations for the well-being of a human organization, 
or in efforts ingeniously to arrive at ends of selfish, local, or 
party character — but in doing what in our proper sphere we 
may rightly do, in prosecuting the august agency with 
which we are honored in accomplishing God's own decree 
in behalf of His holy church. It is of His elect that we 
have the charge appertaining to our body. It is in the fur- 
therance with which He is pleased to honor means, that 
we are to be agents in His great and gracious work of de- 
livering " from curse and damnation those whom He hath 
chosen in Christ out of mankind, and bringing them, by 
Christ, to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor." 
Brethren : let not these solemn considerations be ever dis- 
missed from our minds. In all we deliberate and all we do, 
be such high and holy thoughts ever with us. Be it our 
main anxiety that God's purpose towards His elect may, by 
His blessing on our prayers and labors, be thereby forward- 
ed. Be we mainly solicitous that the cause of Christ may 
be stronger among us, in our personal interest therein, in 
our respective official connections with it, and in its general 
prevalence in this portion of His church, at the close than it 
is now at the commencement of our session. Let us, with 
one heart and one mind, meet at God's altar, there resolve, 
each for himself, that he will be the last to engender strife 
in this holy council, and the most solicitous and careful, as 
God may give him ability, to contribute to its peaceful and 
holy influences ; and there, in faith, penitence, and devo- 



23 

tion, seek Christ's promised sufficient grace, and His strength 
made perfect in the weakness of its subject. And when 
there we remember the faithful departed, to bless God's holy 
name for their pious lives and happy deaths, bear we in* 
special mind the beloved and honored prelate,* now resting 
from his labors, the mildness, sobriety, and prudence of 
whose counsels helped us, when last our Convention met, to 
deliberate on the interests of Christ's holy church. And be 
we thankful that we can turn from this serious loss to the 
higher branch of our body, and to the apostolic ranks in 
this western section of the church of Christ, to contemplate 
the happy accession of five to consecrate to the momentous 
duties of the episcopate, characters well approved for learn- 
ing and piety, and devotion well-tested to the Master's cause.f 
Be it, beloved brethren, our unanimous prayer and effort 
that the counsels and acts of the convention being completed 
in the fear of God, and under the blessed influences of His 
Holy Spirit, we may part in peace and love, and return 
with renewed devotion, alacrity, and efficiency, to our re- 
spective departments of the great work of instrumentality 
in securing to the elect of God the everlasting salvation 
to which they are chosen. 

* The Right Reverend Nathaniel Bowen, D. D. Bishop of South Carolina, 
died August 25th, 1839. 

f The Right Reverend Leonidas Polk, D. D. Missionary Bishop, consecra- 
ted December 9, 1838. The Right Reverend William Heathcote De Lancey, 
D. D. Bishop of Western New- York, consecrated May 9, 1839. The Right 
Reverend Christopher Edwards Gadsden, D. D. Bishop of South Carolina, 
consecrated June 21, 1840. The Right Reverend William Rollinson Whit- 
tingham, D. D. Bishop of Maryland, consecrated September 17, 1840. The 
Right Reverend Stephen Elliott, D. D. Bishop of Georgia, consecrated 
February 28, 1841. 



THE END. 






mSSELP* CONGRESS" 



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